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Virginia Expected to Pick Up Another Congressional Seat

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Demographers say Virginia will likely pick up another U.S. House seat after the 2020 caucus.

An analysis by Carolina Demography, part of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, projects that Virginia, North Carolina and Florida will each gain one congressional seat.

Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, tells the Richmond Times Dispatch that Virginia would then have its largest congressional delegation since the 1850s.

It would also mean that the number of electoral votes in Virginia would increase to 14. That's the most that the state has had since 1860 when it had 15.

The 12th seat would likely be in northern Virginia, which has seen significant population growth compared to the rest of the state.

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.